CPS seminar: ODA project presentation

The CPS seminar held on September 17th, 2012 aimed at familiarizing the Center's staff as well as interested researchers and practitioners from the wider CEU community with the “Update of the current status of implementation of international/bilateral trade regimes with Official Development Assistance (ODA) recipients and the current role of civil society and private sectors as development actors in the new EU Member states” project.

Andrew Cartwright, the principal investigator and coordinator of the project in Hungary, opened the seminar with an introduction of the project. He presented the leading organization and the partners, offered a brief overview about the duration and stages of the project, detailed the objectives and the expected deliverables, and touched upon the challenges of the research till that point.

Anna Selmeczi, Marton Leiszen and Attila Bartha discussed the interim findings and the challenges they encountered in their respective research fields: (1) ODA and the Non-governmental Development Organizations, (2) ODA and Aid for Trade, and (3) ODA and the Private Sector. A key finding, and common element to all three fields, is the lack of transparency concerning data on aid flow and aid management. The scarcity, and in some cases, lack of information, is also the main challenge of the research. Nevertheless the project has made progress and it was possible to present to the audience the following items: the databases with relevant stakeholders (work in progress), a brief analysis of the existing national strategies, Hungary’s trade profile, as well as the selection process for the ODA priority countries.

The seminar ended with a Q&A session which encouraged the audience and the researchers to address, on the one hand, the challenges and gaps of the research, and on the other hand, to evaluate the role of the project in understanding Hungary’s new role as a donor and development actor. 

Power Point Presentation (Download)